Notes from the Couch: Cobra Kai Never Dies

  There is a meme that has been going around on social media cracking that any of us old enough to remember the year 2000 have been broken by its passing. That this is why not only do we see 2000 as twenty-two years ago, but 1980 as twenty-two years ago, as well. The millennium was just too big for us to handle.  It has skewed our sense of time; destroyed our connection to the present.

Although I think it is funny, and sure there may even be some truth to it, I don’t really think that is what did it for me, anyway. The first time I remember being truly in awe of the passage of time was with one of those group emails—this one for college professors. I’m not a professor, and I can’t even remember if the person who forwarded it to me was or if she just forwarded it from someone else, but it was one of those emails sent to give a head’s up about the incoming class. When you get into the business world, you often wind up seeing the same people day after day, and for a while, no one seems to age inside that collective group. But outside, the world moves forward. When you are talking about the business of higher education, there are new students every year and it is important to keep up with what is going on with them. What is important to them. How their views are adjusting. Essentially how the world has changed while you were going about your daily life and not paying attention. This particular one got me because it said that the students coming in were not alive when the Challenger exploded.

There is a lot about that day I don’t remember. Thinking back, I wonder how much of my memory of that day is actually mine and how much of it was the collective memory obtained through my friends and the remembered pieces they have mentioned about the event. On that day, January 28, 1986, the third and fourth graders at our elementary school went to the cafeteria/library to watch the event on one of the school’s televisions wheeled in on a cart. The exciting thing about the Challenger mission was that a school teacher, a civilian, was going up into space. This was one of those moments that was supposed to renew interest in the space program and potentially even expand it. I recently read The Burning Blue by Kevin Cook which went into the politics behind the mission as well as many other things about the space program. It was very enlightening—if you have a chance I highly recommend it. But as a nine year old girl, the mission was supposed to mean that anything was possible. The world was supposed to be telling us that we could be anything we wanted to be—reach any goals. But what I learned instead was that sometimes our reach exceeds our grasp. And that the results can be disastrous. 

I hear there is an American Girl now that is of that age, where she was learning all about space and about the Challenger mission right before the fateful day—because that day was important for us. And not a January 28th goes by that I don’t think about it. Sometimes I even watch the video of the explosion. But this little bit in the email among so many other little snippets about the world as new freshmen knew it at that time, left a mark. Looking back at the Challenger explosion now, knowing I was only nine when it happened, means that anyone nine years younger than I am fits into this category. And that doesn’t seem like that big a gap any more. But at the time, this made that younger group seem SO MUCH younger. Because something that had effected me greatly, they would never know or understand the same way I did. Learning about it would just be learning history. They weren’t part of that history. It wasn’t real for them. At the time of the email, it was hard to see anyone that was born in the 80’s as entering college and technically adults, and I think we all do that on some level or another. Millennials, I love you now (remember my last blog post where I remark that we’re all old now, welcome to the party, guys), but at the time you seemed so young—separated by an experience that so triggered us and was so much a part of the Gen X experience that you aren’t a part of.

So often we divide things up into generational experiences. I’ve seen many posts from Gen Zers discussing all the things that have happened to them in their short lives and how their lives have been traumatic because of these challenges. The truth is every generation has its challenges. When we look back at incidents that happened before we were born, we lack the personal connection to those past events, viewing them from a historical perspective. Sure we understand horrors when we hear about them, but they feel removed from our lives. An example I recently gave to a friend on social media was: imagine what it must have been like to be born in 1900. Not even bringing in the idea of diseases or that the average life expectancy in America was only 46 years for men and 48 years for women at that time, but that before you even got into your teens, the world was at war in WWI. That ended and then there was a two year pandemic. There were a few years that were pretty crazy, but before you hit thirty, the world was thrown into a depression that didn’t end until WWII began. This war included the mass murder of millions of people. All of this before you turned 45 years old—and then you had essentially maxed out your life expectancy.

And shared disasters? Do we forget that all the trials we dealt with, the prior generations dealt with those AND more because they had their own earlier traumas? Maybe when we are younger we feel the older generations had more life experience and can deal with these new disasters more easily than we can because they are older. The Boomers, for example, not only had the Challenger explosion, Communism, 911 and the Recession of 2008 to deal with like we Gen Xers had, but also the JFK, RFK, MLK and Malcom X assassinations along with the Vietnam War and the draft of that war. Wow, spelling it out like that—the 1960’s must have been really rough.  

But back to the 80’s, and specifically, my childhood and that good old nostalgic feeling.  Although Adam was not wrong in Hot Tub Time Machine when he comments about the 80’s essentially being Reagan and AIDs. And as mentioned earlier—the Challenger explosion…and the Chernobyl disaster. The Berlin Wall did come down though, so it wasn’t ALL bad…that happened in November of 1989 though so practically 1990…but I digress…

I’ve been trying to figure out how best to write about Cobra Kai for a while now. I guess starting at the beginning is probably the best. And by the beginning, I mean the first movie.  That nostalgic 80’s feeling again. I’m pretty sure I saw the Karate Kid in the theater. It is exactly the kind of movie my parents would have brought my brother and I to see. I don’t remember being in love with the movie.  It was cool in that it showed a bunch of karate moves. Every Sunday my brother and I would watch the USA Cartoon Express and then Kung Fu Theater on USA Network so we liked watching martial arts. And this movie had teenagers doing martial arts!  The famous crane pose (where Danny kicks Johnny in the face—NO!  NOT THE FACE!!) is of course a staple whenever we would pretend to fight. Judging from my reaction to Johnny getting kicked in the face, I suppose it won’t be surprising to find out I wasn’t overly fond of Danny LaRusso. He was a hero similar to Luke Skywalker in my book—a bit of a whiny kid. Instigator. Johnny Lawrence was a cutie, and even though I would only have been eight at the time, well, I’ve always had a thing for guys with a bit of an asshole streak. (And on a side note, as hot as Johnny Lawrence is, there is almost nothing in the world hotter than Billy Zabka in Shootfighter: Fight to the Death as Ruben Patterson. The early 90’s hair, a body that gives Chris Evan’s First Avenger performance a run for its money.—seriously though—If Billy was born 15 years later, (or even just a little closer in age to Evans, who was born in 1981) he could have been cast as Steve Rogers—and bonus evil Martin Kove character, too, in Shootfighter. I am not the only one fascinated with this movie. There is fanfic on AO3. FANFIC.). 

When I found out about the streaming show Cobra Kai, I wasn’t overly feeling the need to watch it. I saw the Karate Kid 2 back around when it came out—I don’t know if I saw it in the theater. I might have. Probably just rented the tape. I wasn’t bowled over. I don’t even think I saw the Karate Kid III until about a couple weeks ago when I watched it to find out more about the Terry Silver backstory. 

Rewatching the original had me even more aggravated about Daniel. Why would you punch a guy who was with a group of his friends? And hosing the dude down in the bathroom? Did you not expect some retaliation on that? I felt like he was doing these little jabs that incite action and then when Johnny retaliated, he was the asshole because clearly with his martial arts skills and his friends having his back, he had the unfair advantage. Speaking a bit to that—one particular moment in the movie hit me pretty hard this time. When Daniel first goes in to the Cobra Kai dojo to look into signing up.

I found that I liked the movie a lot more rewatching it now. Maybe I just appreciated it more because of the texturizing that the new series has given ` the movie, but more on that later. Back to that moment in the Cobra Kai dojo. Kreese asks Johnny to warm up the group and when Johnny goes up front, he sees Daniel in the back watching and a look crosses his face.  Now I know this look. When I was in college, I had a bit of a scuffle with a couple of girls that started on me at a party. It didn’t come to blows, but it was close. The next day I was in the library, wearing sweats, hanging out with some of my sorority sisters, when I saw the two girls stop short, notice my greek letters sweatshirt, turn around, and take off. They couldn’t leave fast enough—I only saw their faces for a second, but I could swear they had the same look that said “oh no, what did I do last night?” And I’m pretty sure I had that look that Johnny had on his face in the dojo when he saw Daniel. “You had no idea who you messed with.  You’re in my world now.” I will admit, it’s an intoxicating feeling—a feeling of power that you have from belonging to a group. I think we all long to be part of something that makes us feel powerful. Especially when you have other areas of your life where you feel like you have no power at all. Feeling that there is somewhere you have strength—it can change you. It doesn’t always. It certainly doesn’t have to. But it can. At its most extreme, it can turn you into a bully.

And besides, membership may have its privileges, but it also has some serious drawbacks as well. There is conformity expected in a group. There are leaders, there are followers. 

I heard so much hype about Cobra Kai that finally I had to watch it. The third season had just dropped when I sat down and marathoned it in very quick order. Bonus points for starting off with the Johnny Lawrence perspective. His whole brand of toxic masculinity is kind of adorable. Well, at least I think so. After having a run in with Daniel LaRusso, who has done very well for himself, Johnny, pushed by a local teen who lives in a neighboring apartment, decides to open a Cobra Kai dojo. Initially the students at the dojo are kids who have been bullied and want to learn how to defend themselves. So you see that thing where the bullied become the bully. It’s hard to rise above events and not allow yourself to be changed by newly acquired power. When the fourth season was available I watched it right away as well.

It goes without saying, although I will anyway—that I instantly fell in love with the show.  Giving power to the powerless, reopening Cobra Kai started off with the best of intentions. Then the power starts getting the better of people. This theme goes through various cycles throughout the series, where we see who is doing the bullying, who is bullied, how that changes, people behaving themselves and people behaving badly.  All of the characters are realistic in that they have good and bad traits. The bullies have reasons for being that way, and like in real life, rising above issues, and putting aside old rivalries, isn’t easy. Some of the actors are better at portraying skilled karate practitioners, and the fights can be a bit over the top, but they are still fun to watch, and of course, it is about more than the karate.

Earlier when I mentioned generational traumas, I brought up Boomers and Vietnam.  One of the things I really loved about season three was finding out more of Kreese’s back story.  Here is a good place for me to mention that I generally have a problem with late in the day back story coming in on television shows. We do know from the movies that Kreese was in Vietnam, but how much of this actual backstory was known and what was just off the cuff created by the writers right in front of the episode being filmed? I suppose that Kove, knowing his character was in Vietnam and would be impacted by whatever happened there, could fill in the blanks with a trauma and didn’t need the specifics spelled out. We are the sum of our parts, and to create a round character, as actors we fill in with a backstory. If backstory is created by others later, there may be conflict with your created character in that if you had known this about their lives earlier, it may have changed the way you played your character. I remember when I was writing reviews for Supernatural episodes I saw a lot of comments on social media from fans wanting to see more “Wee-chesters”. They wanted to know more about what Sam and Dean were like as kids. Meanwhile, I cringed every time I saw another episode fleshing out back story because if the back story was important enough to tell, wouldn’t it be important enough to have an impact on that character? And what if knowing that about the character would have changed the way the actor would have played various aspects of that character? They do this to Johnny, too, where you find out about what his house was like and how he was bullied by his step dad…and still is…Maybe I’m just not cut out for tv acting…I’ll just stick to stage where I get the whole script then…

But seeing Kreese as a Vietnam vet who lost the love of his life, coming back to civilization with some level of PTSD goes a long way to explaining his style of teaching and his need to make his students strong and merciless to survive. And I think that Vietnam did effect the way Boomers and late Silents raised Gen X. Their childhoods were a certain way because of the hard propaganda push after WWII and the need to create an idyllic America. But then they were drafted into Vietnam and learned the horrors of the world. They didn’t want us to be as scarred as they were from learning how the world really worked so they made sure to let us know every gory detail. Thinking along those lines, it makes sense that a PTSD laden Vietnam vet would teach about striking first, not showing any weakness or mercy as the way to win so they couldn’t be defeated. Because let’s be honest here—Vietnam was all about defeat.  

In the most recent season, Johnny confronts Kreese about when Kreese told him to cheat against Daniel all those years ago.  Kreese commented that Johnny was down 2-0 and about to lose and that the loss could send him on a downward spiral.  We see Kreese feeling guilty and questioning himself over his own actions against Johnny (in Karate Kid 2)after the loss. It even changes the advice he gives Tory from what we would expect Kreese to give Tory in her match against Sam.  That tied in with Silver’s reveal at the end that he knows Kreese’s weakness is Johnny, we see that Kreese maybe sees Johnny as the son he never had, and how he wanted to make Johnny strong and successful in ways he wasn’t.  And if I sound sympathetic toward Kreese, I would say that it is some great acting on Martin Kove’s part as well as some very good writing. I’m not saying that the Johnny/Kreese story is the Marius/Valjean story of our time, just that it is interesting to note how sympathy and empathy come into play—which proffers another reason why cycles continue. We want to believe the best of people.  We want to believe people can change. We want to believe that people can rise above who they were and find something better. That belief is both a strength and a weakness.

Back when Johnny goes out with the old gang to give Tommy, terminal from cancer, a final trip out, they all question Johnny’s move to reopen Cobra Kai and to let Kreese back into his life.  (Remember Tommy? “Get him a body bag!  Yeah!” Wow, the writers thought of everything.) But anyway, Johnny wants to give Kreese another chance saying people can change. And in this scene we see how his quiver of fellow “bullies” have grown and changed.  Tommy gives Johnny advice again, in the form of real pearls of wisdom this time. But as far as Kreese is concerned, we also know that Johnny doesn’t have a real relationship with his stepfather and that he saw Kreese as the father figure he had.  I remember one little parable that my mom would say back when I was a child.  It was about a bear helping a snake out of a trap. Once free, the snake bites the bear.  The bear says I saved you!  Why did you bite me? And the snake replied that the bear knew that he was a snake when he freed him. Clearly you can’t trust something you know to be a snake. Likewise, if someone has proven themselves to be untrustworthy and morally compromised in the past, you are on notice.  

But despite that lesson, I want to believe that people can change. That someone can become more than what they were. I guess I try to have an idea of forgiveness for the past, but I don’t generally forget. I try to allow for that growth from people who have wronged me, but try to be vigilant to the signs that my trust may be misplaced. It’s not going to be perfect. I mean I have in the past taken the risk of giving a second chance and wound up hurt again, but sometimes that happens. I see it as another layer of Picard’s sage wisdom in Peak Performance “It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness.  That is life.” If Johnny were a little “geekier” he might have known that was the lesson that Miguel needed when he showed mercy to Robby and still wound up in the hospital with a broken back…

But more about allowing for people the opportunity to change and television storylines—who doesn’t love a good redemption story?  The person who has seen their own darkness and turned away from it to face the sun—seeing that the darkness was only a shadow cast.  It doesn’t have to reflect who that person will be.  It doesn’t have to dictate the direction their life will take. With Johnny, I think maybe he is looking for a bit of hope—that if he can change his relationship with Kreese, then maybe he change change his relationship with Robby. But even a continued failure of Johnny’s relationship with Kreese doesn’t necessarily mean that Johnny’s relationship with Robby is hopeless.  Right now, at the end of season four, we have some real hope for a better tomorrow. Go ahead writers, tear out my heart. I know you want to…

Which touches on another thing that is a major component of Cobra Kai. There are an awful lot of daddy and daddy substitute issues on this show; Kreese and Johnny, Johnny and Robby, Miguel and Johnny, Tory and Kreese. Daniel has more “normal” issues with his children, Sam and Tony, but issues come up there too. There is also a hint of what almost seems like sibling rivalry for attention.  Miguel and Robby, for instance, have a dynamic I don’t see rectifying any time soon.  Miguel is looking for a father figure and wanted it to be Johnny, but seems resigned to the fact that Johnny’s actual son is going to take precedence over him. I want Johnny to go after Miguel and I love their relationship, but I also want Johnny’s relationship with Robby to work, and I am worried that Johnny going after Miguel when Robby has just come back to him will drive a wedge between the two AGAIN. Really I haven’t seen daddy issue and brother rivalry storylines this compelling since One Tree Hill. I’m so invested. Luckily there is at least a season five coming and probably even more.

So here’s to nostalgia, and the self reflection it can bring…